7 20 On Thunderbolts. [December, 
piece of iron pyrites. At a meeting of the Royal Institute 
of British Architects held in January, 1884, Professor D. E. 
Hughes, F.R.S. (a member of the recent “ Lightning Rod 
Conference ”), in discussing a paper I had just read, said that 
he had long been trying to find a thunderbolt, and that he 
should much like to see one. And in an anonymous article 
“On Thunderbolts,” in the “ Cornhill Magazine ” for 
November, 1884, a writer devotes several pages in attempt- 
ing to demonstrate that thunderbolts have no existence. 
Now, in all these cases the speakers or writers have taken 
for granted that a thunderbolt is the same as a thunderstone, 
viz., a material projedtile fabulously supposed in some of 
the darker ages to have been occasionally emitted by a 
lightning stroke. On what grounds such a confusion of 
teims should have been permitted to develope itself among 
men whose special business it is to keep the public rightly 
informed on such matters baffles my comprehension. For 
it is only necessary to turn to any standard English dic- 
tionary in order to obtain a corredt knowledge of the real 
signification of the old English words thunderbolt and 
thunderstone. 
Perhaps the readers of the “Journal of Science” will 
pardon me if I here adduce verbatim extradts from a few of 
these classical mines. 
(1) . Johnson’s Dictionary, Todd’s Edition, 1827. 
Thundeibolt. Thunder and bolt as it signifies an 
arrow. Lightning. The arrows of Heaven.” 
Thundei stone. A stone fabulously supposed to be 
emitted by thunder.” 
(2) . Webster’s Dictionary, 1841P 
Thunderbolt. “A shaft of lightning; a brilliant 
stream of the electric fluid passing from one part 
of the heavens to another, and particularly from 
the clouds to the earth.” 
Thunderstone. A stone, otherwise called brontia. 
(3) . Craig’s Dictionary, 1848. 
Thunderbolt. “A brilliant stream of the eledtric 
fluid, particularly if adting in a diredtion towards 
earth.” 
Thunderstone. “ A stone fabulously supposed to be 
emitted by thunder ; they are a crystallised iron 
pyrites of cylindrical form found in all chalk beds.” 
(4). Chambers’s Dictionary, 1877. 
Thundeibolt. A shaft of lightning (particularly if 
